After losing Al Horford and Kyrie Irving this offseason in free agency, the Boston Celtics added Kemba Walker, as well as a glut of interesting draft, picks in the 2019 NBA Draft. One of those draft picks was two-time SEC Player of the Year Grant Williams out of Tennessee.
The C’s drafted Williams at No. 22 overall, and Celtics head coach Brad Stevens had high praise for the former Volunteer during media availability at the team’s training camp.
Brad Stevens on Grant Williams: "He's going to be in the NBA for a long, long time." pic.twitter.com/Hj0BKpH7fz
— Celtics on NBC Sports Boston (@NBCSCeltics) October 3, 2019
Certainly, Williams’ poise and supreme intelligence on the court cannot be taught, and his heady style of play should allow him to stick around in the NBA for a long, long time.
Of course, Williams is also a superb athlete who is incredibly strong, and his defensive chops were already on full display during the Celtics’ Summer League campaign where Williams was an absolutely stifling help defender.
Beyond that, Williams was a complete swiss-army-knife player with the Tennessee Volunteers – especially during his back-to-back SEC Player of the Year campaigns in 2017-18 and 2018-19.
The latter was the year in which Williams truly erupted on the national stage. He produced impressive per-game numbers of 18.8 points, 7.5 rebounds, 3.2 assists, 1.5 blocks, and 1.1 steals in 31.9 minutes per contest.
Furthermore, he shot 56.4 percent from the field, 32.6 percent from deep and 81.9 percent from the free-throw line – an area in which he lived with a whopping seven free-throw attempts per game.
Williams’s hulking frame and immense bulk meant that he was foul magnet when he drove to the rim, which is another area where Stevens’s prediction sounds safely prescient.
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